Sinestro

1938 - 22-year-old Sinestro becomes an anthropologist dedicated to preserving the remains of the ancient civilizations of Korugar.

1942 - 26-year-old Sinestro witnesses the fall of Green Lantern Prohl Gosgotha, persued by a Weaponer of Qward. He uses the ring to bring down the Korugar ruins on the Qwardian to kill him, and then allows Prohl to die rather than return his ring, joining the Green Lantern Corp & meeting Abin Sur. He goes on to stem the expantion of the Weaponers and confine them to Qwardian Space.

1954 - 38-year-old Sinestro begins to take on political power on Korugar, beginning his regime, ruling his people through fear.

18 years ago - Sinestro is assigned Hal Jordan as a trainee Green Lantern. Hal undermines his control of Korugar, exposing him to the Green Lantern Corp. He is stripped of his rank and banished into Qwardian Space He leads a revolution against Kalmin the High Thunderer, becoming the new leader of the Weaponers of Qward.

5 years ago - Sinestro is released from the Power Battery by the Green Lantern Corp in a last-ditch effort to stop an insane Hal Jordan. Their battle destroys much of Oa. He is presumed dead, but is in fact saved by Amon Sur, fellow prisoner of the Oans and estranged son of his deceased former partner Abin Sur. Together they retreat into Qwardian Space, breeching the prison of the Weaponers of Qward.

1 year ago - Sinestro's forces are discovered by Kyle Rayner, who races across the galaxy to collect surviving Green Lanterns to restart the Oan Power Battery and reignite the Green Lantern Corp. In the ensuing battle he is again captured and imprisoned on Oa.

There is a pedigree of villany that really doesnt get hit anywhere outside of comics. When people make lists of the greatest bad guys of all time, you will see names like Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Professor Moriarty, Nurse Ratched, Sauron... and they're all fantastic, there's no doubt, but it's very hard to stack them up against bad guys like Doctor Doom or the Joker and wonder why we're even asking this question. There's a very particular magic that comes from the way comics allow a certain element of childish fantasy to run rampant with your adult concepts of science, fantasy and storytelling that allows characters to really strike chords that are impossible anywhere else.

Sinestro is a very special blend of brilliant ideas that you could never get outside a comic book. He's at once a mirror version of his nemesis; a classic mustache-twirling, cackling pastiche of snidely whiplash (complete with mustache), and nothing less than a fully realized space-hitler. There is no way anything with this much absolutely bonkers scope could happen anywhere else.

Sinestro's Comic History

Sinestro was first invented in 1961 by John Broome, Gil Kane and editor Julius Schwartz who also created the Hal Jordan incarnation of Green Lantern and in many ways was responsible for the shape DC comics took moving into the Silver Age. While Green Lantern was an established character concept, this new version (a hero that was a member of a group of space police that used reality-shaping devices) was of course a near exact duplication of EE Doc Smith's Lensman novels, but it was also was a fantastic joining of classic heroic adventure tropes along with high-concept sci-fi. With such a solid foundation in pulp heroics, it was only a matter of time before the series created a truely classic villian nemesis, and we got it by issue seven with Sinestro.

It's very easy to craft a villain that is simply 'the same abilities as the hero only evil' and then just swap the colors around. The Flash had already done it with the Reverse Flash. In this case it was a matter of a color swap and then plunking a head so clearly based on certian bad-guy tropes it's almost funny; Sinestro's face is cut from the same cloth as Ming the Merciless and Snidely Whiplash.

Just like the Reverse Flash, however, great characterization doesnt always mean you build an original character. It can also mean writing a memorable character; someone that really breaks new ground in defining the tropes that build him. Sinestro is just a wonderful, wonderful example of comic-book villainy, and for decades he has continued to be a benchmark in just how scary and dangerous a bad guy can be.

Green Lantern has long been a book that was more comfortable upending the status quo of its world than other comics, thanks largely to it's already high concept mythology. Because of this Sinestro has changed drastically over the years while always maintaining his aura of intense menace. He was an intergalactic warlord, a scheming opportunist, and a prisoner of war before he was killed as part of the massive destruction of the Green Lantern Corp in the nineties.

The creation of the Sinestro Corp and the outbreak of the Sinestro War was the first step toward the invention of a variety of Lantern Corps. It's come to define the character and a large part of the DC Universe around it, although when the New 52 began he had actually returned to the Green Lantern Corp, having taken Hal Jordan's place.

Our Sinestro Story

For a large part of Sinestro's history, we are simply using his clasic continuity. In some cases there are small changes that are happening simply to refine and reinforce just who he is and what he's doing, as well as small changes to the overall worldbuilding solely so that our larger story makes more sense (like making Qward a off-limits sector of space rather than an entire antimatter dimention), but even then it's a matter of building between his large scale attacks on the Green Lanterns and on the galaxy at large, establishing just how dangerous a threat he is.

While it's hard to ignore the mass appeal of the concepts introduced during the Sinestro War and the subsequent creation of the other Lantern Corps, it has still never felt like a story that was doing the larger mythology of DC any favors. It required a same-ness and a glaring lack of originality, and in many cases, like Sinestro's, it sometimes meant that some characters would be behaving decidedly against type. Sinestro absolutely would not willingly share power. He might build an army, but they wouldn't be given their own yellow rings. Even his lieutenants, in our story, are only granted rings that allow them to fly and survive in space, but they must have their own abilities that allow them to battle Green Lanterns. The Sinestro Corp is simply not something that this character would create.

The Sinestro Corps

The Sinestro Corp was the first of the additional Lantern Corps that eventually expanded into a whole spectrum of galaxy-spanning groups. The appeal of the concept on the surface is pretty clear; it make the mythology of the Green Lanterns part of a larger story, and all the disparate pieces of their world becomes a more cohesive whole.

Of course, when everything is combined together into a homegenous entity... all the smaller parts that used to stand out and be unique lose the things that made them stand out. None of the characters are interesting as individuals anymore. Half the characters in DC have been in one of the Lantern Corps at one time or another now, and most of the Green Lanterns have wound up in several corps. Every Green Lantern villain ever created is now just one more ring-bearer in one more corp.

Obviously, there are some cool characters that came out of the invention of the Sinestro Corp. We're using a modified version of this idea to include them in our story, but there will be no Sinestro Corp. That's just not the story we're telling.

Sinestro's Costume

This is probably going to be a controversial opinion, but the two most common looks we see Sinestro sporting in recent years are not actually his best. What we mostly see is him wearing his old Green Lantern costume, or his yellow Sinestro Corp uniform. The Green Lantern outfit doesnt work for what should be obvious reasons; you've created a character that is basically space-hitler. Stop giving him redemptive arcs.

They yellow costume is a little trickier because truthfully I understand it's appeal. His ring is yellow, afterall, why WOULDN'T he wear a yellow outfit? To me it's a question of color contrasts. The yellow ring being used by a guy with pink skin and a black & blue outfit while fighting a green-costumed hero gives you all sorts of colors that pop off the page. It's riotous and interesting. The yellow costume is just a uniform.

Really, it's emblemic of the larger issue with the larger Green Lantern story; if you make everyone the same, then no one is interesting. Sinestro is an insanely awesome villain. He should stand out like one.

Sinestro's Future

Sinestro is by far one of the most terrifyingly powerful villains in DC's pantheon of baddies. He's incredibly effective as his hero's nemesis putting him on par with characters like Lex Luthor, Reverse-Flash, and the Joker, but he's also cosmically, world-threateningly powerful. He's on a very short list of villains that actually have sucessfully ruled an entire planet.

We've crafted a timeline that, I hope, honors that, that takes his every appearance and lends it appropriate narrative weight. What does it mean, then, for the character in the future? As we leave him he is again a prisoner of the Green Lantern Corp imprisoned on Oa. While you could again tell a story about him escaping and threatening the galaxy at large, it might actually be more interesting to explore what events might cause the Green Lanterns to free him willingly. Out timeline is just beginning to feature an attack by the extra-galactic entity Lady Styx. If that battle becomes truely desperate, It might just happen that the Corp has no choice but to release it's greatest enemy to stop the threat. And who knows what future might lie for Sinestro if he were to gain access to the otherworldly horrors of Styx's technology?